If there is no question that the Ford Model T is the most significant car in history, nominating the Volkswagen Beetle as the second most significant is almost equally incontrovertible .

One of the many famous Doyle Dane Bernbach Volkswagen ads asked, ‘How long can we keep on handing you this same old line’ (meaning the car’s profile). Those advertisements date from the 1960s when no-one could have predicted how long the model would remain in production. The answer dating from the official launch of the KDF (Strength through Joy) Wagen in 1938 turned out to be 65 years until the last Mexican-built car rolled off the production line on 30 July 2003. Frankly, this beggars belief!

It was not until after World War 2 that the Volkswagen began its decades of success, essentially as a people’s car throughout Europe and then in the US. While the same old line endured, the Beetle evolved with significant upgrades on an annual basis. In his excellent Shannons Club feature in our Classic Garage series, Joe Kenwright details the car’s career in Australia.

Equally interesting is the Beetle’s phenomenal success in the US. It succeeded where many other contemporaneous small cars failed, among them the Renault Dauphine and Triumph Herald. By the late 1950s American motorists had grown accustomed to a national highway network as well as having powerful V8 engines in their family sedans and wagons. Typically, they expected even the second (or third) car in the family to be capable of being driven for hours at speeds exceeding 65 miles per hour. With its robust air-cooled horizontally-opposed four-cylinder engine and overdrive top gear, the Beetle was one of comparatively few small cars up to this challenge. It also handled icy and even snow-covered roads better than any other two-wheel-drive vehicle. The Volkswagen exerted strong appeal to elements of the US elite. People who scorned gigantic cars laden with chrome and powered by gas-guzzling V8 engines, as well as the concept of planned obsolescence, bought a Volkswagen instead; it became the darling of the counter-culture; Volkswagens were ‘cool’ in a way that foreshadowed the Issigonis Mini-Minor a few years later.
  In Australia, too, battered Beetles with faded Stop the Vietnam War Now stickers abounded in the traffic longer after our troops had been withdrawn. (This is all quite paradoxical, given the car’s origin in the most right-wing and repressive culture in modern history!) Volkswagen sales began in Australia in 1953. From 1954 when local assembly from CKD (Completely Knocked Down) kits began the car became a familiar sight, even if it was only avid lovers of small European cars in general and the Volkswagen in particular who thought such a strange machine could possibly succeed in Australia. But it quickly built up a legendary reputation. On what was this reputation based? Well, certainly victory against much more powerful cars in the 1955 Redex Trial helped. 

In the Land of the Underdog, the Volkswagen was an instant hero. On the flat, early models ran out of puff at little more than 100km/h. But they could maintain this speed all day, gradient permitting. In strong contrast with other small cars then available, third gear also ran to a respectable speed – not surprising in view of its being a direct top gear. Even a ’54 VW could pull 90km/h in third.  Big 15-inch wheels and long suspension travel under a very strong body endowed the Volkswagen with rough road ability unmatched by any other small car of the day or even the Holden or Peugeot 203/ 403. With its overdrive, rear-mounted engine affording stupendous traction to the driven wheels and smooth underbody, the Volkswagen seemed to have been designed with Australian conditions in mind: the car could even float!  No question, the Beetle’s swing-axle rear suspension was notorious for lift-off oversteer, but keen drivers were able to exploit this characteristic to good effect. They also loved the accurate steering and the delightfully light and precise gearchange.

Because of the steady improvements made as running changes, the Beetle remained competitive in most markets almost until it was superseded by the front-engined, front-wheel-drive Golf in 1974. And successful as the Golf has been over several model generations, it is set to be discontinued; while 23 million people bought a gen-one Beetle, just 12 million have chosen what Volkswagen dubbed ‘A Whole New Ball Game’. Back in 1953, the Volkswagen compared more than favourably with rivals such as the Morris Minor and Ford Prefect. Typically, small-engined English cars of this era were not designed for motorways; cruising speeds were typically 45 miles per hour compared with the Beetle’s 60-plus at very lazy rpm. 

The 40-horsepower model which was released here in 1961 boasted a raft of changes. Besides the 10 per cent increase in power, it also acquired synchromesh on first gear, quite a rarity in the day.  As Joe Kenwright observes, in some respects Australian Beetles were better than those on offer elsewhere. Certainly the finish achieved by the Clayton plant was equal to cars made in Wolfsburg.

When compared with many other small 1961 models such as the Morris Minor 1000 and the Standard Ten, the 40-horsepower Volkswagen had a higher cruising speed, similar fuel economy and acceleration, and comparable standard equipment. The low-stressed engine was more durable, too: until well into the 1960s, the typical British small car engine required a complete overhaul by 50,000 miles, while Beetle engines regularly covered 70,000, 80,000 without attention to the internals, sometimes more. The fully imported 1500, which was released here in 1968, remained competitive against cars like the Renault Ten. 

Astonishingly perhaps, given its modest performance, the Beetle was the car to beat in its class in series production racing until the arrival of the Ford Cortina and Vauxhall Viva.
  In 1997 Volkswagen released the New Beetle which used generation-five Golf mechanicals. But it was essentially just the exterior shape (facelifted in minor fashion in 2005) and some elements of the interior that emulated the original: in essence it was a more stylish Golf with a retro Beetle feel.

Ditto the A5 model, which was lower, sleeker and known just as the Beetle. Despite Volkswagen and Oprah Winfrey promising every audience member of the 22 November 2010 final episode of Oprah’s Favourite Things a new Beetle on its release the following year, sales of this car were very poor.

As a Supermodel, the Volkswagen Beetle is best remembered in its brilliant original generation.